the Bard's Tavern
My corner of your imagination
My corner of your imagination
Jul 23rd
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
I just found out about this. If you don’t know, DriveThruRPG is a place that sells PDF version of role-playing books. Why is this important? Why do you want to spend money on a version of a book you can’t hold?

Well First, it’s the only legal way you should have digital copy of an RPG book.
Secondly, They are often already cheaper than the regular book. For example, the new World of Darkness: Mirrors PDF is $22 versus $32. You get the same information and you shave $10.
Third, You don’t have half a dozen books on your shelf taking up space. now you, as a GM can take a laptop and a flash drive to the game session. Hate looking through a book going “I know there’s a rule about…” do search!
I have just about everything I need for Shadowrun on a 2 gig flash drive. Have you ever been on break, at work or school, and gone “If I just had my book with me…” There you go!
Now, all this can be yours with an extra 25% off.
Seriously why are you still reading this?
Did I mention they have free stuff too? This site just rocks.
Jul 20th
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
Growing pains… the Tavern is upgrading to WordPress 3.0 which is a lot better than WordPress 2.idonothing.1
This is a good thing, but it means a little bit of set up. Stay tuned.
Jun 9th
In case you haven’t read up on the latest and thought D&D was dead there’s a new article talking about a new product that Wizards of the Cost is trying to promote called “D&D Encounters”. Here’s the full article, http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/wayoflife/06/08/new.dungeons.dragons/index.html?hpt=C2 but I can save you some time.
“Wizards of the Coast, the current publishers of D&D, recognized that some of the 24 million people who used to play the game left, not because they didn’t want to play, but because their lifestyles changed and they didn’t have the time anymore — so they have created a new rules system to address those concerns and bring back their former fans.”
Yeah, this sums it up for me right here. WotC, WTF?! The reality isn’t that the people who used to play have had life style changes. Trust me, I just did a Firefly Shindig and these guys still have the same free time for gaming now as they did 20 years ago. No, it’s that the 24 million people who used to play hack and slash games have evolved to seek a higher level of entertainment than just “roll-playing”.
“”Encounters” has premade characters and a premade adventure provided to the game’s referee and storyteller, the Dungeon Master. Maps, tokens, game pieces and player aids, such as bonus cards, are all included.”
So let’s just call this for what it is – “Gold Box Pen and Paper!” Yes, I went there! I mean let’s get real, this is everything you love about MMOGs without the subscrpitions or creative thought process. At least “Daggerfall” let you crate your own character before it tried to railroad you along the plot line.
“Wizards of the Coast wants to remind players that using an active imagination can be very satisfying compared to simply being fed information from a computer screen.”
Because being fed information from a human, word by word, is much better than walking around the Shivering Isles going “Wow! Check out the trees!” Thanks but compare that to my friend who named all the vendor stalls in town after pop culture references that only we’d understand. And I can’t forget a Toy Store owner who looked at my character and went “Oh, thank God. I thought you were some damned kid. I hate kids!” I’ve never talked to him since, but I haven’t forgotten him either.
Even though I’m loosing faith in White Wolf, I do have to thank them for changing the role of Game Master to Storyteller. What real Role Players want is the story. To live the story, and be the story. We want to create something that is our own, not just meander through the motions of a setting someone else created. If I wanted that I’d re-install “Neverwinter Nights”… the original http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)
*shudders*
Apr 15th
What I like in all of my stories, if my own style hasn’t become obvious yet, is for them to be driven by the personality of the character. I also like my characters to be flawed in some way, or at least unable to do everything all the time. Even Doctor Who has his problems, and I like to see Extraordinary characters in Ordinary situations. That’s what I got when I rolled the dice on ‘Dead Witch Walking’.
Let me take a step back and say that I was looking for a good Audio Book for a road trip, so I was willing to take a chance on just about anything outside of the norm. I’m also reading many books right now so it had to be something I didn’t already have in print. No sense in buying an Audio book for something I’ve already picked up a normal book for. I also wanted Unabridged — needless to say, I was getting very specific.
“Dead Witch Walking” seemed to fit. It was Unabridged and was right up the alley for what I wanted with Modern Fantasy (I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff). It takes place in an alternate modern world where humanity was almost destroyed by a tomato. I’m serious, you have to read the book but a tomato almost wiped out mankind and thus pasta would never be the same.
The main character is Rachel Morgan, a witch. Since paranormal types are immune to the tomato virus the events served only to balance out and reveal the paranormals that had been hiding along side humans the entire time. Vampires, Weres, Pixies and their arch rival Faries all exist with Ghosts, Demons, Witches and Warlocks just trying to make a living along side nervous humans. But can you blame them?
Rachel is an awesome character, and not just because she has red hair and the kind of girl-fight that would make her a perfect Slayer Side kick in the Buffy-Verse, but because she’s strong and sexy without being overly sexed. Rachel’s lack of “assets”, frizzy hair and freckles make her seem, almost, vulnerable and more endearing. She finds herself unemployed and living with a vampire who is her total opposite. Ivy exudes sexual energy but I quickly got the sense that there is a soft underbelly to this Vamp Vixen. A crack in the armor that she’s clearly trying to cover up. And then there’s Jenks, the 4″ Pixie who ends up being one of the bolder and most dynamic characters in the story. He constantly acts like someone who forgets he’s so small, which almost makes sense if I imagine a character who’s lived his whole life in a full sized world. In some instances he even comes across as tougher, and I found myself glad he’s not human sized or he I would wonder if he was truly unstoppable.
Like Books before it, I found myself being drawn back to the story to find out what characters were going to do next. I would forget about the main plot in some areas, and there is a heck of a mystery to solve. Sadly the underlying mystery never does get solved, but the point of this book was how the Hunter Becomes the Hunted. Rachel has to survive loosing her job, loosing her apartment, loosing all of her stuff (someone put a curse on all her worldly possessions leaving her with nothing but the clothes on her back), and a price on her head welcoming assassination attempts just when I thought she could relax. And yet, even when I knew the threat of death looms over Rachel if she so much as checks the mail I found myself more interested in her reading a book Ivy gave her.
I’m hooked!
Mar 1st
Well, RIP the series isn’t but Cold had a new episode come out.
A few weeks ago the link to the RIP site had stopped working for a while, and while I’d tried to update all the redirects on my site they just weren’t going to the proper pages. But, I’m happy to report that they are working now… not that anyone probably noticed they were broken.
In unrelated news, Crystal Witchery managed to stop living her life long enough to get Cold Companion 7 out. You should check it out at
For those that aren’t familiar with the series might still recognize her unique style in Episode 4 “The Dark Slayer” of RIP. For those that are familiar with the series might NOT recognize me playing two characters.
Either way, it was one of my favorites because it brings a lot of the elements and characters together. It was one of the faster paced episodes so don’t think you can ever get too comfortable with one scene. As a writer I really like the way Crystal streamlined the dialog so that everything tells the story while moving it forward. Many things have to be implied regarding the back story, as hinted through conversations, but that just helps give the episode depth without adding time.
Since I play Jason, I had to have a sneak peak at Companion 8 and I’m rather excited to see what develops.
Feb 21st
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized

Crackberry
“the First One’s Free” is what they always say in movies, when you’re talking about the hook that most drug dealers use. This is in theme with the “Crackberry”, as it’s been called. But for me, my first Blackberry actually cost me $50, which is pretty close to free when you add on the fact that I didn’t have to change any contracts or pay upgrade fees. Simply buy the used device from a friend who was getting a G1 and go from there.
At first it was easy to not depend on the Blackberry, because I only used the WiFi adapter so I could surf the internet anywhere I found a network signal. The phone still took pictures and made calls, but I couldn’t use many of the features that required a regular data package. And that seemed to be enough.
Then the OS upgrade came out. The new Operating System (OS) for the phone allowed me to use the camera for taking videos. It also allowed for better web-surfing so I found myself using those WiFi hot spots more.
My fall came in Christmas of 2009, when I was going to the Valley to see my family. I added the data package only to make sure I had access to loved ones back in Houston since I wasn’t sure if I could use my laptop from my cousin’s house. I realized all the new features the data package allowed.
Recently, I’ve sent pictures of my new office across the upgraded email software and I don’t use chat programs on my computer thanks to Google Chat on my phone. As we go into March I realize that the data package I meant to turn off before we rolled over into 2010 is still going strong, and… I just can’t stop! I don’t think I want to stop.
I guess The first one really cost me $50.
Feb 1st
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
I think every teacher should take a martial arts class, and I don’t say this because I used to teach Karate. I say this because in Karate you will eventually hear a sentence similar to the following: If someone ever tries to grab you on the street…
Like many people, I hated Math. I hated Algebra in particular and have often felt like I’ve never use it. The problem is that no teacher ever told me: If you need to make a household budget in Excel…
That’s right. Today I’m going to touch on the idea that you can use a spreadsheet for you household budget, but I’m going to take it one step further so that everyone can play along. For starters, there are people out there who live check to check and others who have one or two jobs and never know how much they might make in a week. I becomes hard to plan your bills when you don’t know where the next check is going to come in.
Well lets just assume you don’t have the money to get Excel. That’s where OpenOffice.org comes in, and because we love things that are free but effective, that’s what we’re going to use today. If you don’t have OpenOffice, you could still use Microsoft Office since they work the same. But this demonstration is with OpenOffice.
Budgeting 102
A Budget is pretty simple. Step 1 is taking all your bills for the month, Step 2 is adding all of them together, Step 3 is setting aside that much every month, Step 4 is spending what’s left on Amazon.com… or maybe that’s just me.
As I said before, the hard part comes when your paychecks fluctuate. And here is where Algebra (I know, I hated admitting that) comes in to play. Look at this Formula:
B2*B1=B3
In your spreadsheet you put the words:
Pay Per Hour in A1
Hours Per Week in A2
and Pre Tax Pay in A3
You leave B1 and B2 blank but type =(B2*B1) in B3.
Now, when you type the amount you make an hour in B1 and the hours you work in a week in B2 you will instantly see a number appear in B3.
Using this simple little formula you can look at how much you make and determine how many hours you need to work. Is it worth it to get that second job? I don’t know but =(C2*C1) in C3 will allow you to use column C to add in that second job.
Mind you all of this is pre-taxed and clearly you can add more complex formulas. But even at this level you can predict if you need to work more hours at your current job, just ask for a $0.25 instead, or just find a job that pays just that much more. Since the formula is alive the data changes to not only budget your money, but help predict what you will take home.
In my own spreadsheet I even have all of my bills being totaled. I then have the Est. Paycheck reduced for what I estimated my taxes to be, and then have the bills subtracted from that total amount. Now , hold on to your hats, I then have that amount divided by 4 so that I know, more or less, my own weekly budget for imported beerI mean online books!
When you look at it this way, Algebra isn’t about finding out what X is. We always know what X is because it’s the trip, the gift or the outfit we want. But in this way Algebra becomes a system for asking: If X is the cost, then what’s the best way for me to aquire the funds.
To me, that’s the real meaning of working smatter over harder.
Jan 14th
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
It may not look like much to you, but to an imaginative tech this is a treasure chest!
And yes, you read this correctly in that I am talking about getting a new PC for under $300. Know it’s possible because it’s what I’m getting ready to do soon. You see, my computer is in need of a major upgrade and so I’ll have to be buying some parts for it, but the good news is that I can reuse some of the parts from my old PC.
It’s amazing what one can do with a little creativity and an old system. For example, I just acquired a PC that was in working order but the hard drive failed. It was from someone who gave up and decided to buy a new PC and thus planned to dispose of the old one, which I’m sure many of you have done in the past. I was given the old system, with it’s failed hard drive, to salvage what I could.
To be honest, I salvaged the whole thing! I went to a computer store in my area that specializes in second hand parts and picked up an 80 gig hard drive. Brought it back and tested it throughly to make sure there was nothing wrong with the drive and then installed it and a clean copy of windows. Since this was a Dell, I made sure I used the Windows CD that came with it in the first place. I then added some free virus software that you can get off the internet, an free copy of OpenOffice, updated to the lastest version of windows and bought some $6 PC speakers (new!)
My total out of pocket expense was $25. I plan to sell the system for $150 because it has both a DVD RW (which was tested) and CD RW (also tested). I went to YouTube and played some videos which I’ve done at customer’s homes. I find that YouTube lets me test the internet, video and audio all at the same time. Plus, if I pick a topic like “[Insurance Company] Commercial” I’m pretty sure to get very family safe videos.
My point is, this PC could have been turned into a secondary PC if the customer had wished. I’m sure they wouldn’t have cared to clutter up the house with another PC anyway but for growing families there is often a fight over who gets the computer. I would have charged a total of $225 for the hard drive, the install, and loading all the software, service packs, drivers (which can be tricky and time consuming), and internet extras. $225 for a Spare PC that the kids can surf the internet on and OpenOffice to do all their homework?
Don’t count those old PCs out just because a major component dies. It might worth it to get a Tech to take a second look at it. With a little creativity you might just have a good hand me down.
Jan 5th
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
I just ran across this article today: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108504/10-things-not-to-buy-in-2010
It talks about the 10 things you shouldn’t spend money on in 2010 and while I mostly agree, I think you should be aware that there are some factor that this articles does not take into account. My goal with this blog is to keep everyone informed of complex issues with simple ideas. And so this is a good example of how I can do that for you.

one "iPhone killer"
“Smartphone also-rans”. What does that even mean? The article states that you should probably get a Blackberry or iPhone because they have the most apps. Well, yeah! Blackberry has been around for 10 years and is a back bone to most offices since 2002. You think those guys ONLY use it for work? No. So obviously there are toys for it too. the iPhone is the biggest fad since Atkins. It was so revolutionary that everyone jumped on it. But when the person who washes your rental car sits down and pulls out an iPhone to send a text you start to realize just how commonplace the phone has become since it’s release in June of 2007. And to say that only 5% of people said they would purchase the My Touch is a very misleading statement. That’s like asking “How many people plan to buy a Toyota Corolla in 2010″? because the My Touch is a T-Mobile only phone. People want AT&T, Verizon and Sprint as well. Sprint has the Hero, Verizon has the Droid, AT&T is working with HTC (makers of the original G1 Android phone) for their own Google Phone. The first Android came out in Oct of 2008? And so limited to only T-Mobile users that it’s still taking time to catch on.My advice is not to limit yourself to just Blackberry or iPhone. Go out, look at the phones that has features YOU want. With the Cliqs, Droids, Heroes and Touches out there I’m betting you’ll see more Android apps hitting the market very soon. Unlike the iPhone, which is only with AT&T, programmers of the Android apps know they will be hitting larger audiences. Just like Blackberry.
Every thing else I agree with, except the idea that you’re advised to buy a bulkier alternative to a digital camera with a 500% higher price tag. Yeah, I think I’ll stick with the $70 Nikon that’s about a thick as my wallet. Thank you!
Jan 1st
Posted by bard noir in Uncategorized
So, 2009 was supposed to be an era of change and hope. Well, I’ve seen a lot of change and I have a lot of hope so I guess that’s what we were shooting for. But with 2010 I’ve decided to make changes, especially to W00TDave.com. As many know, I’m an IT guy with a creative soul. My biggest strength has always been ‘talking customer’ and one of my greatest passions is writing so I’ve decided to do both.
What this blog will feature is articles written to be a common person’s view on a technical person’s world. When we talk about hard drives, bandwidth, dataplans and wifi signals it’s clear to use what we are talking about. To many people in the IT world the easiest way to explain a WiFi adapter is; an adapter that picks up wifi signals. But to most people they don’t know what a wifi signal is or where it comes from. They know that Starbucks offers it for free in some places and there are things called ‘Hot Spots’ but outside of that it’s not very clear.
I have a blackberry with a dataplan right now. I love it, but to save money I’m about to drop the dataplan. No tears, because it has a built in wifi adapter. This means that I can stand in the middle Bestbuy and look up video game reviews on my phone before buying anything. Or stand around in Boarder’s Books checking email, because the Blackberry patches into the wifi of the surrounding locations. No WiFi means my Blackberry becomes little more than a cellphone that plays music and videos. I once pulled out my Blackberry to make a call, as I was leaving a restaurant, and realized I could have been surfing the web while waiting for my meal! It was one of the reasons I ate there again later that week (I kid you not!)
So, how do I do all this? And is there an easy way for you to do it too? Sure! But that’s too much to go over in one post. I just wanted you to know what’s possible and that I won’t get all complicated when I explain it. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go turn my Xbox 360 into a DVD player while looking for work on my laptop.